Mark-Viverito goes on a 'charm offensive'

Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito is trying to get her speakership off on the right foot.

At a celebratory inauguration ceremony in the Bronx on Wednesday night, the speaker hosted a crowd that included Mayor Bill de Blasio and first lady Chirlane McCray, along with some of the top-ranking Latinos in city politics.

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There was live music, palpable ethnic pride, a slew of speakers who cheered her historic election, and, for the actual swearing-in, a copy of the 1898 city charter that consolidated the five boroughs.

"I know that unity among the five boroughs and 51 council districts is the only way to move forward in the best interest of every New Yorker," Mark-Viverito said in her inaugural remarks. "We are stronger when we stand together as one."

To consolidate her own power at City Hall, the new speaker has embarked on a quiet but conspicuous campaign to appeal to her colleagues, and heal any lingering wounds from a long and fractious speaker campaign.

Several Council insiders said Mark-Viverito has set up shop at 250 Broadway, across from City Hall, where rank-and-file council members keep their own offices, to show members she's available to them, and to make an implicit contrast with her predecessor, former speaker Christine Quinn, who mostly operated out of City Hall.

Mark-Viverito has hired a team of about ten staffers to work out of her office.

"She likes the office better--it is nicer--and she is trying to make herself more accessible to members than Christine Quinn was," said one Council source. "She's definitely on a charm offensive, and trying to mend some fences."

Councilman Mark Weprin, an erstwhile speaker candidate who backed Mark-Viverito's opponent, Dan Garodnick, in the race for speaker, said he's been "pleasantly surprised" with the way she's assumed control of the office.

"Melissa has done a very good job of trying to do outreach to members, to be social," he said, adding that she "has gone out of her way to reach out to members, and to be visible, and to answer [their] phone calls."

Councilman Jimmy Vacca from the Bronx, another former speaker candidate who later backed Garodnick, said the message was clear.

"Sometimes when a speaker is even visible in the elevator, it sends a message that she is involved, that she is accessible, that she is with members," he said.

Vacca added he's seen Mark-Viverito making the rounds at 250 Broadway introducing herself to staff.

"It's been very well received by the staff," he said.

But the charm offensive has only extended so far.

Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo, who was one of Mark-Viverito's principal critics during the campaign, and was one of only two members to vote against the speaker's committee appointments last week, said she hadn't heard about the charm offensive.

"I'm hearing this now for the first time," she said.

"But then again I'm not here all the time, so it's difficult," she said, explaining that she usually works in her district. What Mark-Viverito is doing is "a good thing," she added.

Mark-Viverito said her door at 250 Broadway would continue to be open to all members.

“I meant what I said when I told my colleagues my door would always be open," she said in a statement. "I value the relationships I have with all my colleagues and believe the best way to move this city forward is if we all work together."